


I Hear Forever is an Awfully Long Time

by mizdiz



Category: Black Mirror, The X-Files
Genre: Crossover, Episode: s03e04 San Junipero, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 00:16:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13446474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizdiz/pseuds/mizdiz
Summary: Ever-the-skeptic Dana Scully takes a trial run of San Junipero, and meets someone who makes her reconsider the objectivity of reality, even if the tides move without the moon.





	I Hear Forever is an Awfully Long Time

The year is 1993.

 

From vibrating speakers, Gloria Gayman’s “I Will Survive” is blasting through the dance floor, where bodies are moving with such reckless abandon you’d think they were caged animals that have finally been released. In a way, maybe they are. They bump, grind, and rub against one another, and with all the friction, Scully thinks it should be hotter in here, but it isn’t. It’s the perfect temperature.

 

It’s a small thing, a glitch in the matrix, but it serves as a reminder: This isn’t real.

 

“Can I buy you a drink?”

 

She startles at the sudden voice in her ear. She turns to find an attractive man regarding her with a glint in his eye that twists her stomach a little. He looks like he’s in his mid-twenties, and Scully wonders how old he really is, and wonders if she’s the only one in this whole town who cares.

 

“Beg pardon?” she asks. These are the first words she’s spoken here, and her own voice sounds foreign to her; it comes out higher, girlish.  _ Younger _ , she realizes.

 

“A drink,” says the man, nodding towards the bar. There’s a barkeeper moving jauntily between customers, like he was born for this. In a way, he was. It’s easy to love your job when it’s in your programming. “D’you want one or were you just gonna sit here and stare holes into the wall over there all night?” He grins at her. He’s got the sort of grin you can’t help but to smile back at, and so she does, and says,

 

“I’ll take a beer.”

 

“Two beers, please,” he tells the barkeeper, and then takes the stool beside her.

 

“Name’s Mulder,” he says, taking the beers and passing one to her.

 

“Mulder? I haven’t heard that one before.” 

 

Mulder chuckles as he drinks. “It’s my last name,” he clarifies. 

 

“Oh, well, I didn’t realize we were being formal,” she teases. “I guess that makes me Scully.”

 

Mulder waves a dismissive hand. “No, no, it’s just—I make everyone call me Mulder.” At Scully’s questioning expression, he adds, “My first name is Fox,” as though that’s all the explanation needed.

 

“Fox. That’s…”

 

“Terrible, I know.”

 

“That’s not—” but Mulder waves his hand again.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I take it you usually don’t go by Scully?”

 

“Mm, no, not to guys hitting on me in bars,” she says, taking a quick sip of her beer to hide her embarrassment at being so direct. It’s been some time since she’s had cause to flirt with anyone.

 

“Who says I’m hitting on you?” asks Mulder, and Scully’s heart falls to her butt so fast she hardly has time to process it. At what must be a look of pure, abject horror on her face, Mulder laughs, places a hand on her shoulder, and says, “Relax, I’m just messing with you.”

 

Scully takes a minute to compose herself. She says, “You can call me Scully if you want.”

 

“What’s your first name?”

 

“Dana. My name’s Dana Scully.”

 

Mulder holds out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Dana Scully,” he says, and after a beat, Scully takes his outstretched hand in hers and shakes it. His skin is smooth and soft, absent of callus or scar, as is hers, and something about that doesn’t seem quite right.

 

“Likewise,” she mutters, pulling back and discreetly examining the back of her knuckle. There’s the thin white line from where she cut herself when trampling through the woods with her brothers when she was nine. But when she ghosts a finger over it, the skin isn’t raised and rough like it should be, like it’s merely a photocopy of what her body looked like at 26.

 

“I don’t think I’ve seen you here before,” says Mulder, leaning against the counter, seemingly unaware of Scully’s brief moment of existentialism.

 

“You haven’t,” she confirms, looking up from her simulated scar and meeting his eye. “First night.” 

 

“Ooh wee!” says Mulder with a low whistle. “First night in party town, huh? Trial, then?” Scully nods. “I see; welcome, welcome. And how are you liking it so far?” 

 

Scully considers the question. So far there have been pros and cons. She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t exhilarating to be inside her healthy, youthful body from long ago; she’d forgotten what it felt like to move so effortlessly; to breathe so deeply.

 

She’d also enjoyed playing dress up. Tonight, she’s wearing an open flannel over top a baggy t-shirt she’s got tucked into a pair of jean shorts, all pulled together with a pair of Doc Martens. She’d never been much of a shorts person, but it’d been an age since she last had the legs for them, and to not flaunt them seemed like such a waste. Yes, eyeing herself in the mirror, feeling up her own curves, she’d had genuine fun.

 

But then, there are an awful lot of people here, and it feels an awful lot like pure hedonism. She’s overwhelmed by the perverse levels of gluttony surrounding her, which is not much helped by the constant, nagging voice in her head making sure to remind her that, “None of this is real!”

 

“I haven’t collected enough data to make a determination, so the jury’s still out,” she says. “I’m not sure if this is really my scene. But I guess we’ll see.”

 

“I guess we will,” Mulder agrees with a smirk. He holds out his bottle to her, and after a moment, Scully clinks hers against it, not sure what it is they’re toasting, or if there even needs to be a reason.

 

“So, you’re very beautiful,” Mulder says after they’ve both swallowed, which is lucky, because otherwise Scully would have almost definitely choked on her drink.

 

“You’re very forward,” she says, hoping he can’t see her reddening cheeks in the dim club lights.

 

“If you’re only on a trial run, then we’ve only got—” He checks his watch. “—Three hours before I’ve got to say goodbye. There’s no time to be subtle.” 

 

“Say goodbye?” asks Scully, recovering quickly. “Are you a full-timer?”

 

“Mhm,” says Mulder casually. “For some time now, but don’t ask me how long, I haven’t a clue. Around here, the only time we keep track of is which day is Saturday, but God only knows how many Saturdays we’ve had.”

 

“Do you like it?” Scully asks. “In San Junipero, I mean?”

 

Mulder grins. He brings the bottle to his lips, and pauses with a shrug. “Jury’s still out,” he says.

 

He doesn’t elaborate, and Scully isn’t sure if it’s her place to ask him to, so instead she turns to look out over the sea of people on the dance floor. The energy hasn’t died down in the slightest.

 

“Do you dance?” asks Mulder. She scoffs.

 

“Not like that,” she says. “Nuthin but a G Thang” by Dr. Dre is playing, and the way the couples in the crowd are interlaced, gesticulating their hips and backsides provocatively, makes Scully feel out of practice and unbelievably old. 

 

“What kind of dancing do you do, then?” asks Mulder, but when she opens her mouth to answer he holds up a hand to stop her. “No, let me guess.” He makes a show of looking her up and down, regarding her very closely, and then says, resolutely, “Break dancing.” Caught off guard, Scully barks out a laugh, and he smiles broadly, like making her laugh that hard is a true achievement. 

 

“No, not quite,” she says, laughter still on her breath. “I don’t know if I am much of a dancer, period, if we’re being honest.”

 

“But you’ve must have danced sometime in your life, right?”

 

“Well, I mean, sure, everyone has, haven’t they? But nothing as involved as whatever they’re doing out there,” she says, nodding towards the crowd apprehensively. “I’ve only done that lazy swaying type; the type with as little footwork as possible.”

 

“I believe they call that slow dancing,” says Mulder, and Scully rolls her eyes. “Let’s do that, then.”

 

Scully blinks. “Do what?”

 

“Slow dance.”

 

“To this?” she asks with a slight chuckle. Dr. Dre has slow faded into DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. 

 

“The DJ is programmed to take requests. What’s your favorite music of the era?”

 

“Oh, Mulder, don’t be ridiculous. Don’t go changing the music, I’m fine here, really, I’m still getting my bearings together.”

 

“Scully,” says Mulder, bending forward so they’re eye level. “You’ve got less than three hours left here tonight, and I’m not letting you spend it with your butt glued to a bar stool. Now, what do you want me to play?”

 

“Oh for the love of—fine. But you’ll have to surprise me. It’s been too long, I don’t remember the hits of this year.”

 

Mulder nods and holds up a finger, indicating for her to stay put. He hops off his chair and disappears through the crowd. 

 

Scully sits with a furrowed brow, not sure what to make of the direction her night has taken. It is a party town, she reminds herself, getting chatted up was always going to be par for the course, wasn’t it?

 

As if on cue, a man slides in the spot Mulder vacated just minutes before. 

 

“Hey,” he says, smiling and leaning up against the bar. He’s done nothing different than what Mulder’s done, but Scully is immediately put off. This man’s smile is considerably less welcoming, and the way he’s propped himself up beside her radiates an unattractive arrogance. Scully smiles back to be polite, but it’s tight and guarded.

 

“Hi,” she says back, angling herself ever so slightly away from him. He compensates by scooting to the edge of his seat, right into her personal space.

 

“I’m Tom,” he says so proudly she wonders if he wants her to congratulate him. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

 

“Well it’s definitely not sweetheart,” says Scully, grabbing her beer and lifting it to her lips just so that there’s something between her and Tom.

 

“Can I get you a refill,” Tom asks.

 

“Still plenty left, thanks.”

 

“You new in town?”

 

“Mm,” says Scully, noncommittal.

 

“Then can I give you some advice?”

 

“I feel like you’re going to whether I say yes or not.”

 

Tom smiles his unpleasant smile. “I saw who you were sitting here with.”

 

“Who, Mulder?” asks Scully with a frown. 

 

“Take my advice, Not Sweetheart, and don’t waste your time with him. Guy’s a total weirdo.”

 

“How do you mean?” Scully asks defensively, awash with a surprising amount of loyalty for someone she’s known for fifteen minutes at best.

 

“He’s obsessed with how this place works. He’ll talk anyone’s ear off about his stupid, philosophical ideas about what San Junipero says about humankind, and his conspiracy theories about what they might be doing with the uploaded consciousnesses outside of the simulation. The guy’s a full-timer, but it’s like he can’t just accept paradise at face value. Someone like that’s not gonna do anything but bum you out.”

 

“I’m actually curious to hear his theories,” says Scully, and she finds that she means it, but Tom gives her a look you’d give a child who’s said something particularly naive. He reaches over to put a hand on her cheek, and she can’t pull away without running into the person on her other side, so she just grimaces as he says in a low-tone,

 

“You’ll enjoy yourself a lot more if you spend the night with someone who knows how to show a girl a good time.”

 

Scully is just about to tell Tom all the places he can shove his good time, when a voice says, “Am I interrupting?” and they both turn to find Mulder hovering there awkwardly.

 

“Not at all,” says Scully firmly, tearing herself away from Tom and taking Mulder’s hand to start leading him towards the dance floor. “It’s been a pleasure,” she says over her shoulder, barely suppressing a laugh at the complete bewilderment on Tom’s face.

 

“What was that about?” asks Mulder, raising his voice as the music gets louder the closer they get to the stereo system. They stop on the dance floor, a bit off to the side from everyone else.

 

“Empirical evidence that even in an alleged paradise, douchebags are still going to exist,” Scully shouts back, and Mulder laughs. Scully pauses and listens as the music slow fades into the next. “Billy Joel, Mulder?”

 

“‘River of Dreams,’ Scully, it’s a classic.” 

 

Scully stares up at him blankly before busting up laughing again, a feeling very close to adoration welling up inside her.

 

“You’ll have to remind me how to do this, it’s been awhile,” she says. He nods, and tentatively puts his hands around her waist.

 

“Is this okay?” he asks.

 

“Yes,” she replies, and it comes out breathier than she intends. How long has it been since she’s been held like this? She swallows thickly and reaches up to wrap her arms around his neck. “You’re tall,” she says dumbly, thrown off kilter as Mulder presses her into him closer. He’s warm, she realizes, she can feel the warmth radiating off his body, and simulation or not, it feels painfully real. 

 

“Seems like you know what you’re doing to me,” Mulder says.

 

“It’s coming back to me—oop!” She lets out a shriek of surprise as Mulder takes one of her hands and spins her around. He pulls her back and she thumps against his chest. “Warn me before you change the steps,” she says, laughing.

 

“Then you’ll just overthink it,” he says dismissively. He rests his chin on the top of her head, and she nervously lets herself relax against him, feeling surprisingly safe in his arms. His hand is holding her securely on the small of her back.

 

“I appreciate your appropriate hand, there, Mulder,” she says. 

 

“You mean this hand?” he asks, and his touch slides down.

 

“Hey now!” Scully admonishes, and Mulder laughs as he moves his hand back up into safe territory.

 

“Just teasing,” he says gently.

 

They sway lazily— _ slow dance _ , rather—until the slow fade starts, and another upbeat, painfully 90s song begins. They linger together a little longer, before pulling apart. They search each other’s faces, and give identical awkward smiles as the crowd continues to move on without them.

 

“Hey,” says Mulder, pushing a strand of Scully’s hair behind her ear. “Let’s get out of here.” Scully raises a skeptical brow at the implication, and Mulder shakes his head, smiling. “I don’t mean like that. I just want to show you part of San Junipero that may be more your scene.”

 

Scully regards him for a long moment.

 

“Okay.”

 

—-

 

The wild nighttime waves crash against the shore, lapping over Scully’s bare feet in the sand. The water is cool, but not too cool; it’s just right. Beside her, Mulder picks up pebbles and skips them out one by one with a flick of the wrist.

 

“Do the tides change?” she asks, looking out into the horizon and seeing nothing but darkness.

 

“Beg pardon?” asks Mulder, letting the pebble in his hand drop and walking over to her.

 

“High tide, low tide, do those happen here?”

 

“Yeah, why?”

 

“The moon isn’t real,” she says. “There’s no gravitational pull to affect the tides.”

 

“It’s a good simulation. A damn good one.”

 

“There’s a crazy attention to detail, I’ll give them that.” She kicks the sand and feels the individual grains rub between her toes. “I didn’t want to come here,” she says.

 

“Why not?” asks Mulder, sitting down and holding an arm out. Scully considers it a moment, before conceding and plopping down beside him, letting him envelop her and letting her head rest against his shoulder. 

 

“I’m a scientist. I used to be a medical doctor. This place, it’s an incredible technological advancement, but the idea of living somewhere for eternity where all the laws of science I’ve dedicated my life to don’t apply? It might be too much for me.”

 

“So why did you come?”

 

“My sister asked me to; more like begged, really. She can’t wait to come here, and she wants me to be here when she finally does. Our parents never got the opportunity, and so she insists our brothers and I have to so we don’t have to deal with the grief again.”

 

“How long do you have?” 

 

“...Not long.” At Mulder’s unasked question, she adds, “Brain cancer.” He nods solemnly, and she appreciates that he doesn’t say he’s sorry. “What made you want to stay?”

 

“Curiosity,” he says.

 

“Not the promise of eternal paradise?”

 

“Not sure if I believe in eternal paradise,” he says. “I want to believe, but, well, the jury’s still out.” He smiles down at her and she smiles back. He turns away to look out over the ocean, and sighs. “My sister was taken when we were kids, and we never found her,” he says. “We never found out if she lived or died.”

 

“And you think she might be here?”

 

Mulder shrugs. “If she lived long enough...It’s possible, right?” 

 

It’s definitely a reach, Scully thinks. She knows most disappearances don’t end with survival, but he’s technically not wrong. “It’s possible,” she agrees.

 

“I know it’s unlikely, I’m not delusional,” Mulder says. “But if there’s a chance I might get to see her again…”

 

“I understand,” Scully says softly. He nods.

 

They sit in companionable silence, breathing in tandem. She closes her eyes and listens to the waves crash against the shore. 

 

“Time’s almost up,” Mulder whispers, his face buried in her hair. “11:59.” She sighs and lifts her head. He’s watching her intently. “This is in case you decide not to come back,” he says, and before she can ask what he means, he presses his lips against hers. She stiffens in surprise, but quickly relaxes, parting her mouth, and they come together like perfect puzzle pieces. He’s warm. He’s real. 

 

She jolts awake in her hospice bed, the sound of her heart monitor droning on and on beside her. 

 

Her lips are cold.

 

—-

 

The year is 2034.

 

It’s been six days since she met Fox Mulder, and she was looking forward to seeing him again, until ten minutes ago when her brother Bill Jr. came into her room and ruined everything.

 

“I don’t understand,” she says, shaking her head at BIll sat at the end of her bed, head in his hands.

 

“Dana I already told you—”

 

“Then tell me again.”

 

“She rolled her car into a ditch on a road no one ever uses. By the time they finally found her, it was too late to do the upload.”

 

“I thought this was supposed to be the most sophisticated technology available,” Scully says, understanding deep down but refusing to admit it. “They must have been able to do it.”

 

“Dana,” says Bill, taking her bony hand in his. On the back of her knuckle there is a rough and raised scar. “They can do the upload when there’s still brain activity. There was no brain activity. You’re a doctor, you know what that means. Missy is dead.  _ Really _ dead.”

 

Scully stares at her brother but doesn’t see him. This isn’t how it was supposed to work. Melissa is the idyllic one, the one who believes in paradise, and in everlasting life. She is the one who sat by her bed and reminded her of every time they fought, and shared clothes, and covered for each other when they snuck in late, and insisted that these memories weren’t worth risking on an uncertain afterlife when they could have the certainty of San Junipero. She is the one who told her they would never have to grieve for each other.

 

“I need to be alone, Bill,” Scully says quietly.

 

“Dana—”

 

“Please.”

 

Bill, with red-rimmed eyes on his lined, aged face, shakes his head, and gets to his feet. The door clicks shut behind him, and she’s left with the beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor, reminding her how very much  _ alive _ she is, and how much her sister isn’t.

 

Part of her believed in God; believed in Heaven. But Heaven isn’t somewhere she can go visit for five hours tomorrow, to check up on her older sister and make sure she’s okay. 

 

If it exists, however, then she can get there soon, sooner than most, and Melissa will still have the eternal life with her that she wanted. 

 

And if it doesn’t exist? Well, then it won’t matter, will it?

 

She should tell Mulder, feels she owes him that much, but when Friday turns to Saturday, she finds she can’t face having to go from one world without Melissa into another. Midnight comes and goes, and it’s still 2034.

 

—-

 

The year is 2000.

 

In the club, there are some familiar faces, and a lot of unfamiliar ones. The music playing is Britney Spears’ “Oops I Did It Again,” which she hates that she knows, but it wasn’t her fault her nieces and nephews were young that year. 

 

She skipped coming three weeks in a row, until she’d had some time to reconcile her grief with her guilt. She doesn’t think Melissa would want her to die regretting never getting closure with Mulder. She was a big believer in fate, and would have insisted that what was probably just nerves, alcohol, and basic compatibility, was actually destined to be. Scully knows that Melissa wouldn’t want her to die, period, but that’s not an option. It hardly was before, and certainly isn’t now.

 

Which is why she’s taking the coward’s way out.

 

Because, with the compatibility or fate or something else entirely, she doesn’t think she can handle seeing Mulder face-to-face. So instead she intends to find someone to pass a message his way. It’s not exactly closure on her end, but it hopefully is for him, and that’s enough for her.

 

She played dress-up today half-heartedly, still harboring a directionless anger towards happenstance, God, or maybe just San Junipero itself for not giving Melissa the chance to experience this life beyond life. She would have loved all of it, but the clothes would have been her favorite. So Scully materializes an outfit of cuffed jeans, a light pink peasant top, and a pair of black pumps, and tries not to think of how much fun Melissa would have had fawning over her fashion choices, as well as her own.

 

She greets the identical barkeep, with the identical jaunty disposition, and orders herself a gin and tonic, because today a beer won’t cut it. She takes a big gulp, and then sputters and coughs. It’s been years since she’s thrown back hard liquor, and although it burns, she still sort of revels in it. The detail of the place, it’s astounding.

 

She begins to search the crowd. She goes up to a pretty woman leaning against the wall. She says, “Excuse me.” The woman smiles at her politely. “You don’t happen to know Fox Mulder, do you?” The woman’s face immediately sours.

 

“Who doesn’t?” she says, nose upturned. “Why?”

 

“I’m trying to get a message to him,” Scully says.

 

“Well don’t ask me to do it, I’m not getting roped into one of his diatribes about how the government is using San Junipero to gather information from people’s memories, or whatever.” The woman stalks off without so much as a goodbye.

 

This may be harder than originally thought, thinks Scully.

 

She approaches several more people, all who give similar responses. She’s starting to feel a bit crazy. Was she really the only one in this entire town who thought Mulder was someone special and not a freak? But just when she’s getting ready to give up, someone from behind her goes, “Psst!” 

 

She frowns, turns around, and then looks down to find a short, pudgy man in glasses staring at her.

 

“Yes?” she asks. The man gestures with his head for her to follow him, and she debates for about two seconds before deciding she might as well. 

 

He leads her over to an arcade area, where the short man joins two other men, one who is tall and gangly, and one who looks like he should be somewhere running for governor as an independent candidate who stutters in front of crowds. The gangly one is playing some shootout game, while the nervous politician stands behind him.

 

“We heard you asking around, looking for Mulder,” says the short man.

 

“Yeah, do you know him?” Scully asks. All three of them nod. “And do you like him?” They nod again. “Hmph, well that puts you in the minority around here, it seems.” 

 

“Don’t let them color your opinion,” says the short man. “Mulder’s a better guy than all these knobs combined.”

 

“You’re Dana Scully, aren’t you?” asks the nervous politician. Scully frowns.

 

“How’d you know that?”

 

“Mulder told us about you,” says the gangly one.

 

“I see,” says Scully slowly. “And who are you?”

 

“Frohike,” says the short man. “That’s Byers, and that’s Langly.”

 

“Hi,” Scully says awkwardly. “Look, I don’t plan to stay long, I just needed to find someone to pass a message to him. Do you think you could do that? I don’t know how often you see him.”

 

“Oh, we’re full-timers, we see him all the time,” Frohike assures her. “What’s the message, doll?”

 

Scully decides to let that one slide.

 

“I need you to tell him that I won’t be coming back, but that it doesn’t have to do with him, and that I would have liked to have more time with him. And that I’m sorry.” 

 

The three of them, in unison, turn to each other, and then turn back to her. Byers says,

 

“Couldn’t you have told him this yourself? He’s been spending his Saturdays in ‘93 in case you showed back up. He wouldn’t have been hard to find.”

 

“I know, I just...It’s hard to explain, but I didn’t think it would be good for us to see each other again.” The three men say nothing; just stare blankly at her. She frowns again. “What?” 

 

“He’s gonna be real bummed to know you came back but didn’t come to see him,” says Langly, a bit harshly. Byers sees how Langly’s tone hurts her, and adds, softer,

 

“He just means that Mulder assumed you weren’t coming back to town, and he was making peace with that. But he may be...disappointed to know that you did come back, but didn’t want to see him.”

 

“I do want to see him,” says Scully. “I just...I’ve been dealing with a lot of loss these past couple weeks, and I didn’t want to deal with more.” The men say nothing. Scully stamps a foot in frustration. “Look, are you going to pass my message or not?”

 

“We’ll pass it,” says Byers. “But you might reconsider delivering it yourself.”

 

Scully opens her mouth to protest, but Frohike interrupts.

 

“We aren’t telling you what to do. We’re just telling you, the man is a bit smitten with you, and by the sounds of it, it seems like you might feel the same, and goodbyes tend to be handled better in person. That’s all. We’ll pass the message along, but if you change your mind, Mulder told us he’s going to go to ‘96 next Saturday. Getting tired of getting his hopes up, I guess. If you don’t show up, then we’ll tell him. Fair?”

 

Scully regards the trio, her stomach sick with anxiety. She presses her lips into a thin line and nods.

 

—-

 

The year is 2034.

 

It’s Friday again, and Scully is  _ not _ going to go see Mulder tomorrow. She’s not going to do it. She’s not—

 

—-

 

The year is 1996.

 

In a no nonsense outfit of a fitted blazer, jeans, and a pair of chunky heels, Scully loiters outside the club, where through the closed door she can hear the muffled sound of the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” booming through the room. She’s been standing here for twenty minutes, debating with herself. 

 

‘He’s just someone you met that you got attached to because you’ve been so lonely for so long, it didn’t mean anything.’

 

‘But it’s been over a month and I’m still thinking about him, doesn’t that mean something?’

 

‘It means you’re being ridiculous.’

 

‘Or it means I should accept meaningful connections when they happen because who knows what’s to come?’

 

‘Yeah, or maybe you’re just being pathetic.’

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Scully says aloud, startling the couple making out against the wall beside her. She pays them no mind, and goes inside before she loses her nerve.

 

It takes her less than a minute to spot him. He’s by himself at the farthest stool, practically in the shadows, nursing a beer with a forlorn look that makes her feel better about being so melodramatic, because at least he’s being that way too. She heads his way.

 

She clears her throat. “Hey.”

 

Mulder, who was lost in thought somewhere miles away, snaps at attention at the sound of her voice. He stares at her for several seconds as though trying to decide if she’s really there, and then breaks into a grin.

 

“I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again,” he says. “Were you just passing through, or did you know I’d be here?”

 

“I ran into some friends of yours last week in 2000,” she says. “They said you might be here today.”

 

He nods. He doesn’t ask why she was in 2000 talking to his friends, although she suspects he wants to. Instead, he asks, “Want a drink?” but she shakes her head.

 

“Can we get out of here, actually?” she asks, and he immediately sits down his beer.

 

“Lead the way.”

 

—-

 

Mulder actually leads the way, since Scully can’t make heads or tails of the place. He drives her to a nice but mostly unremarkable beach house, and stops the car.

 

“Is this place yours?” she asks, shutting the car door. 

 

“Yeah. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s got a nice view.” They walk up to the porch, and Mulder hesitates. “You wanna come in, or…”

 

“Maybe we can just sit outside for a bit?” Scully says. Disappointment flashes across Mulder’s face, but it’s gone so quick she can’t be sure she saw it. She adds, “It’s just nice out, that’s all. I don’t get much fresh air back home.”

 

“Yeah, of course,” says Mulder. He takes a seat on the top step, and Scully sits beside him. There is a lingering pause, until Mulder coughs lightly, and then says, “So it feels like you want to say something.” He looks over and smiles at her, and she smiles back, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She’s silent a little longer, feeling the smooth simulation of a scar on the back of her knuckle.

 

“My sister died a few weeks ago,” she says, speaking to her knees because she can’t bring herself to meet his eyes. “Car accident.”

 

“Died? So you means she’s here?”

 

Scully inhales deeply and shakes her head. She whispers, “They didn’t get to her in time.”

 

“Oh, Scully,” Mulder breathes, and he wraps an arm around her shoulder. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes, but she blinks them back, not allowing herself to fall apart. She regains her composure.

 

“She was the reason I was ever going to consider staying here,” she says, and she hears Mulder sigh.

 

“But now she’s gone, so now you’re not going to consider it,” he says. He doesn’t sound angry.

 

“I can’t stay here knowing she never got the chance.”

 

“So you came here to say goodbye.”

 

“I almost didn’t,” she admits. “I found your friends, those three guys—they’re a bit weird, by the way—and I asked them if they’d tell you goodbye for me, because I didn’t want to have to do it myself. It was cowardly, and I knew it, and they managed to convince me it wasn’t fair to you.”

 

“We knew each other three hours,” Mulder says. “You don’t owe me anything, Scully.”

 

“I haven’t made any meaningful connections with anyone for a long time, Mulder, and the last time a person I cared about left me I never had the chance to say goodbye. I don’t just owe you that, but I owe it to myself, as well. I just don’t want you to be angry with me.”

 

Mulder’s grip on her shoulder tightens. 

 

“I’m not angry with you,” he says resolutely. “I understand. I just am...I don’t know, a bit despondent that the one person I meet who sees this place the same way I do isn’t going to stay. Turns out paradise can still be lonely.”

 

“Have you considered leaving?”

 

“Of course I have, but I can’t. Not until…”

 

“Not until you know for sure,” Scully says, and with the loss of her own sister so fresh in her mind, she can’t help but feel Mulder’s crusade as deeply as if it were her own. “I hope you find her, Mulder. I really, truly do.”

 

“I hope you find yours too,” he says. 

 

The words hit her like a spear to the heart. Through tears, she maneuvers around to face him, and stares at him, before cupping his cheeks and placing a hard, lingering kiss on his mouth, which he returns with gusto.

 

“Take me to bed?” she whispers. 

 

“Anything you want for your last night in paradise,” he whispers back. He gets to his feet and scoops her up into his arms, carrying her over the threshold like a bride.

 

His bed is big, cushiony, and full of fluffy down pillows and soft linens. He takes her and although it’s been quite awhile since her last time, she doesn’t need to search her memory to know it’s the best she’s ever had. She’s filled with so much sensation it’s overwhelming. He’s here, and so is she, and together they are real—realer than anything in the outside world has ever been—and for the first time she thinks that reality may actually be subjective; that what is Truth and what is Lie is dependent on experience and not just evidence.

 

They lay in the afterglow, and the clock ticks down. If she wants to believe this is real, then she has to accept saying goodbye, because real-life has just as many endings as it does beginnings.

 

He threads his fingers through her hair.

 

“You were the best part of my paradise,” he tells her. 

 

She leans into his touch, committing it into a memory she may not have for long.

 

“And you were the best part of mine.”

 

—-

 

The year is 2034.

 

Bill is arguing with her, which, in Scully’s opinion, seems like an awful way to spend the last few hours with your sister. But then, that’s what he’s arguing about.

 

“I don’t know why you’re making me go through this again.”

 

“You already agreed to it.”

 

“That was before Missy died.”

 

“Bill, it’s going to happen sooner or later, and I’m tired of waiting. It just gets more painful every day. You already gave your consent.”

 

“Then I take it back.”

 

“The papers are signed, Bill. Like it or not, I’m going through with it at three this afternoon, so maybe don’t make our last memories together hostile ones, yeah?”

 

Bill deflates. “I don’t want to lose two sisters this close apart,” he whispers. Scully finds his hand and squeezes it.

 

“Maybe you don’t have to,” she says after a long moment.

 

Bill blinks at her.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

—-

 

The year is 1993. 

 

It’s a Tuesday, and the freed animals in the club are swaying to Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” Scully’s wearing shorts again, because these are her legs now, and damnit if she’s not going to appreciate them.

 

She finds him at the bar, talking to the barkeep, who is jaunty as always, and just a little too off-center to be completely human. Technology never claimed perfection.

 

She slides in beside him and says, “Can I get you a drink.”

 

He stares at her like she’s a winning lottery ticket for so long she thinks he might be a simulation too and she’s just broken him. Finally, he says,

 

“Who dies on a Tuesday? That means the last full day you had was a Monday. That’s the worst one.”

 

Scully shrugs, laughing. “The nurse that works Mondays gives me real cream cheese instead of the light stuff,” she says. He smiles.

 

“How long are you staying?” 

 

“Somewhere between an hour and forever,” she says. “Until you find your sister. Until I need to find mine. Until paradise stops being paradise, whenever that may be.”

 

He regards her carefully. 

 

“I hear forever is an awfully long time,” he tells her.

 

“Best to get started on it now, then.”

 

“Where do we begin?”

 

She takes a seat on the barstool, and takes his hand in hers.

 

“Let’s start with a drink, while you tell me about these wild conspiracy theories everyone around here seems to think you have,” she says. “Then we conquer forever.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i had to look at so much horrific 90s fashion for this fic, so you'd better comment to make up for that
> 
> anyway, thnx for reading. find me at: alexkryceksbutt.tumblr.com
> 
> -diz


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